Customer Reviews

Olympus SP-565UZ 10MP Digital Camera with 20x Optical Dual Image Stabilized Zoom

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I owned an 550UZ for 18 months and decided to upgrade to the 565UZ for the extra mega-pixels and other feature differences. I'm an amateur photographer but married to a professional. We originally purchased the 550UZ so that I had a camera that was easy for me to use yet if I wanted to I could override the settings while I learned more about photography from him. First, I have used both cameras extensively for copying pages from books, copying photographs, and snapping microfilm screens in libraries for my genealogical research. With the document mode the camera is in almost the perfect settings. I always use a custom white balance so that I don't have to do ANYTHING to the book photos. I have taught several other genealogists who are not techies to use this camera and set the white balance! The same camera goes immediately outside for tourist pictures with stunning results. Like all AF cameras you have to be aware of where the camera is focusing and make sure you press the shutter button down half way and give the camera time to focus. Many times I get as good shots as my husband's (his still has more pixels!). The extra 2X zoom helps get nicer long shots in focus. My favorite part of working with this camera is being able to swap between outside landscape mode to available light shots to documents within seconds!

After playing around with this camera for a week, I can cheerfully say that this is what Olympus SP570UZ should have been in the first place. The Olympus SP565UZ (I am cutting out the SP and UZ from this point on) is not only smaller and lighter then 570 but it also got auto focus and AUTO-ZOOM feature. How surprising that turned out to be.

In essence, 565 is an physical makeover of the 570. It is in fact, 570 in all its capabilities but better. Its better because it was able to maintained most of the features of the 570 while improving on its deficits. Outside of putting back in the auto zoom that was my biggest and major complaint about the 570, they also managed to fixed my second complaint, the viewfinder that is far more easier to use then 570. Only the video remain the same but I can live with that shortcoming.

On the downside, this camera still uses Olympus xD card, one of the most inferior media cards in the market. I don't know why Olympus just bite the bullet and take one for their camera industry and do away with the xD card. Thus, unless you are in one of those burst modes, the recycle speed of this camera will NOT be breaking any records. Another minor downside for me at least is that their self timer mode is still at 2 seconds and 12 seconds. I was kind of hoping that they might have an custom self-timer like Canon ultra-zoom cameras got.

This camera do take a micro-SD card. Inside the box, there is an adapter for the micro SD card. Its in the shape of a xD card of course. I supposed this was added on so you can download easier to your phone or IPod or whatever. Of course, they could be like Fuji and add a second slot for SD card. But who is whining anyway??

As Amazon stated, this camera have more of a point and shoot feel then the 570. Anyone who have handled the old 550 and 560 can easily handled this 565 without much adjustments. The menu has been changed to streamlined thing. Back of the camera has definitely changed. But its still one of the best cameras to use in comfort. On the 570, there were four buttons on the left side of the LCD screen, now all these buttons are located around the cursor button like the old 550 and 560. One button on the 570 that is missing on the 565 is the auto exposure lock button. That function is now served by a custom button, a slight downgrade for some. This camera however, managed to keep all the manual features of the 570. In fact, if you put this camera into the "manual mode", it is almost like having a small version of 570 in your hands. The rubberized grip on the lens appears to be a carry over from the 570.

Overall, if you enjoyed the 550 and 560, then you will have no problem enjoying 565 series. The 20x zoom is fantastic, all the frills like shadow adjustments and face detections worked just fine. They also add another feature I haven't use much but sound promising. They called it "pre capture" and you have to use a lower resolution but when you half press the shutter, it take ten photos at once and you get pick which one you like the best after you finished it off by pushing the shutter button all the way down. Weird but if you got the card space and the time to review all ten shots, then its pretty neat.

Hope this review been helpful in some ways.

Just got this camera recently but here is my initial take. Ideally I'd like to have a camera that can take intelligent pictures without much guess when in auto mode. Some of my pictures in auto mode will come out nice and others will come out blurry, even in good light conditions. Any settings saved in auto mode or scn mode are reset just by changing modes or turning off the camera. So if you don't want to use iESP and want to use spot focus instead, you have to keep resetting it each time. Settings will only be saved in P, A, S, M or video modes. Macros come out really nice. Zoom is great, but can loose focus in auto mode especially if zoomed to the max. The evf switches to lcd screen after each shot, so you have to watch it on the screen after each shot and not on the evf. When switching between scene modes, you have to go through lots of buttons and you cant see how the image looks through the lens, instead you see the built in images representing each mode and then it switches to a text description for each mode. I miss having the scenes on the dial and to be able to see the images as they appear while going through each scene. The feel and the construction of the camera is excellent. If Olympus can just work on their user interface and the auto intelligent mode, this camera can rock. Sometimes when you have to take a quick shot, you want to rely on the auto mode.

I have 3 digital ultra-zooms, the Olympus SP-565UZ, the Panasonic FZ18, and an older Kodak ultra-zoom when 10x optical zoom was the standard. I predominantly take outdoor photos of songbirds in trees, water fowl, farm animals and landscapes so if you are mostly a people photographer or an indoor photographer, check out the other reviews and skip this one.

The Olympus 565UZ has a lot of noise when the optical zoom is maxed out at 20x and that's a disappointment because I mostly use the camera at 20x. Also, all of the images, at any distance, are soft. Although you can use the camera menu to increase the sharpness of the image, every image still needs additional sharpening on the computer.

I rarely use the 565UZ on the auto setting because the outdoor images are too bright preferring one of the other modes where I can adjust exposure. It is, however, an easy camera to use and I had the shortest learning curve with the 565UZ. The color quality of the images is good and you can opt for a vivid setting over a natural one, if that's what you desire. The 565UZ has a great variety of camera pre-sets in scene mode and there is a macro and super macro setting, as well.

The Panasonic FZ18 takes the best quality images of the three cameras, when the optical zoom is maxed out, but with Olympus going to a 26x optical zoom and Kodak going to a 24x optical zoom, it's hard for a person who likes to take bird photos to stick with Panasonic's FZ18, 18x optical zoom camera. I also think the Panasonic FZ18 LCD screen is better than the Olympus 565UZ LCD screen but since I only use an LCD screen to review photos, I can't say which camera's LCD screen is better for taking photos.

If you are used to a sharp, no noise image, don't need the 20x max optical zoom and you don't need such a big variety of scene pre-sets, I think there are better ultra-zoom camera choices than the Olympus 565UZ. I hope they have improved the image quality (noise and softness) on their new 590UZ because 26x optical zoom is so tempting.

I have been using this camera for about 4 weeks and find it awesome. Taking photos for real estate presentations has been simplified by the excellent wide angle views that are possible, and the panorama shots are very useful and easy to produce. The 20x telephoto lens take excellent photos of the moon at 10mpx with the moon filling the entire frame.
The only thing I don't care for is that the camera uses AAA batteries. This is eased by using LiMH rechargables but less convenient than having a built-in charger. I have used most but not all of the many fine features and find the menu navigation the easiest and most intuitive I have seen in any camera.

I checked and read consumer group, professional, and average "Joe six pack" reviews until I realized that it was like choosing wine, if you like it, it's good. Well I like this camera. I bought it to get back some of the self determination and "artistic" choices that it affords unlike many "point & shoot" where you get what the camera gives you. The "UZ" has a powerful zoom capability combined with high resolution, without having to once again start packing around a suitcase full of optional lenses and such. It has plenty of features and options so that I can "participate" in the image formulation process as much or as little as I choose. In fact this camera has features that I will likely never use. In the little time that I have used the 565 camera I find that it takes great pictures, limited only by the person pushing the button. It is a size and form that fits naturally in my grip. I am looking forward to learning even more about the camera as I use the settings options in other situations. It provides you a multitude of options in a very small, easily portable package with enough information, for each option on the screen, that you don't need to memorize the manual. Nice controls layout that even works for big fingers. Thank you Olympus.

I bought this camera to take pictures of my sons playing baseball and for our little league year book. It is easy to use and has features that help me to get the shots that I need. The sports setting takes shots without a delay, and by holding down the button, I can get multiple shots so that I don't have to try to time out the play at home plate in order to get the shot. I have been very pleased with the results.

I just got this camera and first of all I'll say that the olympus 565uz requires you to put some effort into learning its features, but right off the bat in scene mode you can take awesome pictures. The 33 stored scene modes really give you a wide array of settings so that you can just point and click in most situations.

The ability to manually change every last little detail is awesome though because there are going to be situations where the picture is just not right, but rest assured you can make it right with this camera. Just takes some learning and playing with manual settings.

The pictures are very crisp, detailed, and the colors are amazing. Also I've had a lot of success with night shots. I'm amazed at how it pulls the light out of anything it can and takes a real good shot.

The zoom is very nice as well. At full zoom I'd say you can get a real nice shot at about 200 yards. 100 - 150 yards the thing you are taking a picture of looks like its pretty close with a good amount of detail. I have not tried shots beyond 200 yards yet, but as I said you still get a pretty nice picture with an OK amount of detail at that distance. Plus beyond the 20x zoom you can do a 5x digital zoom within that picture. The only thing I will say about 100% zoomed is that it requires the lighting and situations to be pretty good otherwise you'll get blurred images. Like if you are trying to take a picture of a deer that is 200 yards from you but there is another one that is only 100 yards from you right in the line of sight the focus of the 100 yards will blur the 200 a bit.

But for the price it's pretty dang good at a distance.

Other than that I'll say I love the panorama feature. It takes a picture then lines it up on either side so you can pan the camera line it up and take the next picture. Comes out awesome.

Also the built in flash is very good. Exactly what you'd expect.

There are cons though

The first is that it takes xD card max 2GB so you'll have to buy a couple of them because 10mp pictures are not small.

The second is the LCD is sort of small, but the overall camera is very compact which is great for carrying and traveling, but with that feature you lose LCD screen space.

The third is that it doesn't use mini-usb chord to connect to the computer. It resembles a mini-usb very much, but its a proprietary thing that you'll have to not lose. Seems I have a mini-usb with me no matter what I'm doing so this is sort of a pain because now I have to remember to grab this specific cable.

The fourth is that it uses AA batteries to run. Some might think this is not a con because you can get AA batteries no matter where you are, but I don't like it because charging is not quite as easy. Though there are battery charges for AA batteries that you can plug into your car. So it's not that big of a deal.


I consider the cons external though in that you can work around them easily where as internally the camera functionality is top notch at this price.

Before my purchase of a Digital Camera, I first searched reviews and reports from several sources about the product. I found that CONSUMER REPORTS had just done a review on this camera and had judged it as a solid product and first in it's class of cameras. This prompted me to make this purchase.

After my use of it and letting my daughter use it, we both found that the camera did all the jobs we wish to do with a Digital Camera. We can make movie clips, action shots, wide angle and zoom shots ALL with clarity and great color. My daughter liked it so well, I promptly purchased her one.

As usual, Amazon did all the right "moves" with service, prompt delivery, follow up, and care and protection of my personal credit information.

Allen Clark
Banner Elk, NC

This is probably the best advanced point and shoot one can buy.

Pros:
Its 20x is just awesome and a big plus if you want to get some great shots needless to say with a tripod.

Its image stabilization is also good.

It has all the features that you can think of in a pro SLR camera. Its good fun to play around with all the features and see different affects.

Cons:
Night photography is not that good and is often hazy if the exposure is not set manually.

Overall a very good investment.